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PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

THE CHURCH SOCIAL UNION. 

Issued Monthly, 
No. 40, j AUGUST 15,1897. j s*IIk A £Zs^s;% c 

Entered at the Post Office, at Boston, Mass., as Second Class Matter. 

The 
Relations Between the Church 

AND THE 

Associated Charities, 

BY / 



ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 

President of the 

ASSOCIATED CHARITIES 

of Boston. 



BOSTON: 
Office of the Secretary, 

The Diocesan House, 

i Joy Street. 

1897. 






THE CHURCH SOCIAL UNION. 
4 

Objects, i. To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate 
authority to rule social practice. 2. To study in common how to 
apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social 
and economic difficulties of the present time. 3. To present 
Christ in practical life as the living Master and King, the enemy 
of wrong and selfishness, the Power of righteousness and love. 

Membership. Any Communicant of the Episcopal Church 
may become a member on payment to the Treasurer of one dollar. 
Any person may subscribe to the publications. 

Publications. Papers on various aspects on the social ques- 
tion are issued monthly. No responsibility is assumed by the 
Wnion for the particular views of individual writers. It is in- 
tended to provide for the expression of different opinions. Sub- 
scriptions 4o the publications, one dollar per annum. Single 
copies, ten cents each. Special rate to members : annual dues and 
subscription to the publications, both at one time, strictly in ad- 
vance, one dollar. The first and second series of publications may 
now be had complete, except one number of the first series which 
is out of print, for one dollar each. Copies of Constitution free. 

Address all letters and make all remittances payable to The 
Church Social Union, Diocesan House, 1 Joy Street, Boston, 
Mass. 

Members are asked to secure new members or subscribers 
to the publications. 

Sample Copies. The Secretary will be glad to send free to 
any Address sample copies of the Constitution or of any of the 
publications which members may be able to use to advantage in 
securing new members or subscribers, or in arousing interest in 
the work of the Union. 



^OF 



The Relations Between the Church and the 
Associated Charities. 



This subject has deep interest today for practical men 
in the thick of the fight to improve the conditions of life. 
Hardly yet do we appreciate the magnitude of the task to 
deal with the problems created by the rapid growth of 
great cities, the wretched lot of working people in slums, 
in mines, ofttimes in despair of finding even any such vile 
shelter or chance to work ; yet enough to make us feel sure 
that success in this tremendous struggle to save civilization 
from failure, to improve the lot in life of the masses of the 
people, is only possible if the great forces work together 
in completes t co-operation. The Church, now and always 
the mightiest power in the world, must not be content to 
teach the love of God and ignore men's needs and woes. 
Nor can charity deal with men's woes and needs, except in 
impotence, unlesss inspired by the Church. Religion and 
charity must go hand in hand. Religion without charity 
will freeze to death. Charity without religion will grovel 
in the mud. Divorce means paralysis of both. Only in 
union is strength. Perfect union is essential and will be 
blessed with success. Without God, man is dust. With- 
out man, God was not content. God has offered Himself to 
man in revealed love, in His Son, to help man up in this 
world and the next. Man at his best rejoices in infinite 



joy to know of this offered love and strength. Moral sui- 
cide if he refuses to accept the aid or lets the spiritual 
powers of his nature grow atrophied by neglect, so that 
they can neither see or know God. Superb vitality if he 
opens his nature to the instant inflow of God's Holy Spirit. 
Who then can help seeing that man must seek God and 
God's help if he will live grandly or work successfully. 
The tasks of earth are too hard for man alone. Man there- 
fore, when in Charity he proposes to uplift mankind, must 
consciously seek God's help. Charity and the Church 
must co-operate. 

I. 

Presently let us survey the variety of new needs of suf- 
fering or sinful men, that we may try to get some con- 
ception of the task set before Church and Charity; but 
before doing so, I ask you to render homage to the newly 
discovered social conscience which has discovered these 
needs of men who are down and which claims the loyal 
service of all, in efforts of reform. 

But before this social conscience was known, how did good 
men deal with human need? In two ways, ignoring it, 
men sought personal piety. Relieving it, they aggravated 
it by most unwise methods. 

Look at two typical and fascinating pictures of old life 
which history has brought down to our day. First, let me 
invite you to quaint old Bergamo, perched on its hills in 
north Italy, a bit removed from common paths and un- 
spoiled. Climb the citadel; enter the grand old Cathe- 
dral; admire the exquisite carving of the old oaken stalls 
around the chancel till your eye rests on that which por- 
trays Charity : A lovely arm from above is dropping coins 
which a group of boys eagerly struggle to get ; the pious 
donor does not see even if she cares who secures her bounty ; 
two young students stand by, looking on and learning the 
beautiful lesson of Charity. Undiscriminating charity 



shall we not call it now, we who know that such tempta- 
tion to pauper life creates more evil than the alms relieve ? 
Next, go with me on the most interesting excursion in 
Europe, to the Convent La Grande Chartreuse, in the hills 
of France, founded by St. Bruno 800 years ago, where the 
rule of silence, except on Thursdays, with midnight ser- 
vice from 12 to 2 daily for all these ages fed and still feeds 
the fervor of devotees, who seem to care for nothing but 
personal piety. 

Does it not surprise us that a quarter of a century ago 
vision of the mighty spirit of his own day was so obscured 
to the critical soul of Matthew Arnold by this relic of 
effete life, where religion in seeking God walled itself 
away from sight or sound or sympathy of outer world and 
human woes, that he could write in his most beautiful poem, 
u La Grande Chartreuse," 

" The kings of modern thought are dumb ; 

Silent they are, though not content, 

And wait to see the future come. 

They had the grief men had of yore, 

But they contend and cry no more." 
Even while Arnold uttered this wail of despair, were not 
the kings of modern thought girding on armor with clear 
vision and inspired guidance from on high for the service 
of brother man in all his countless forms of need ? Were 
not Kingsley and Robertson and Spurgeon and Pusey and 
Maurice in England, were not Phillips Brooks and Beecher 
and Lyman Abbott in America pouring out messages of 
God to man in irresistible power of summons to join wisely 
and mightily in the supreme task of uplifting the masses 
of mankind from their low estate ? 

Marvellous contrast. Profoundly interesting epoch. 
Dividing line and watershed of two empires ; the old and 
the new; Arnold at La Grande Chartreuse looking back 
at effete forms of piety and vital energy, portraying the 
kings of modern thought as dumb, even when already the 



kings of modern thought were shouting trumpet-tongued 
the words of God to an awakening world. 

Let the dead past bury its own dead. Old methods are 
exploded. Personal piety is too selfish. Indiscriminate 
alms-giving is impotent or worse. The new charity created 
by the newly discovered 

II. 

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE 

makes supreme appeal to all who have aught to give, to 
share it with all who need. Personal service is the corner 
stone of the new temple of man. " Not Alms but a Friend," 
was the hint for the Associated Charities I announced on 
December 29, 1879, and it has been approved on two 
continents. 

London began in 1869 the new work of Organizing 
Charity appalled by the fact that the mere distribution of 
relief to the extent of millions of pounds sterling yearly 
was aggravating the evil. The movement swept through 
Great Britain and crossed the Atlantic. In over 200 cities 
of America and many towns it has created an atmosphere 
of judicious, devoted, personal service. 

What was the scope of the new Charity ? Everywhere 
heretics supposed as some still imagine that mere physical 
relief is the chief thing. Wretched fallacy, founded on 
contemptuous ignorance and indifference as to man's won- 
derful nature and infinitely varied needs. How to explode 
this fallacy was our first task in Boston. I cast my 
thought into this apothegm; — 

"Alms are not the whole of Charity. 
Charity must do four things : 

I. Relieve worthy need promptly, fittingly and tenderly. 
II. Prevent unwise alms to the unworthy. 

III. Raise into independence every needy person, where 

this is possible. 

IV. Make sure that no children grow up to be paupers." 



Octavia Hill — who for more than a generation has gone 
in and out of the homes of the London poor as a ministering 
angel and has done more than any person living or who has 
ever lived, to improve the homes of the very poor; to teach 
wise methods ; and to lead and incite gentlemen and ladies 
in England and America to efficient work in this cause, till 
now she is recognized as the chief apostle and wisest 
teacher, as well as the most devoted personal worker 
among the poor — Octavia Hill wrote, out of the depths of 
her love for those in trouble and of her experience in caring 
for them, words well worthy of being read once each 
year by every worker in charity, and especially by every 
minister and by all Church visitors among the poor. For 
they are the words of wisdom, based on experience and 
love ; — 

" But the gift you have to make to the poor, depend upon it, is 
the greatest of all gifts you can make — that of yourselves, follow- 
ing in your great Master's steps, whose life is the foundation of all 
charity. The form of it may change with the ages ; the great law 
remains. ' Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that 
would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.' But see that you give 

him bread, not a stone My friends I have lived face to face 

with the poor for now some years, and I have not learned to think 
gifts of necessaries, such as a man usually provides for his own 

family, useful to them I cannot help thinking that to give 

one's self rather than one's money to the poor, is not exactly turn- 
ing one's face from him." 

Out of this root of personal service — largely precluded 
from mere almsgiving, lest our poor human nature should 
be limited to it and thereby blighted — has grown the vast 
tree of the new charity in its superb proportions. Not 
that its fruits are yet equal to the healing of the nations or 
are indeed potent to cure or prevent many evils of the 
wretched. But charity recognizes the full measure of its 
infinite tasks. Charity no longer whispers its suppliant 
appeal but proclaims trumpet-tongued its peremptory com- 
mands. Charity no longer begs a few old women to potter 



8 

round with baskets of broken food, but lays its edict upon 
all, young and old, men and women, and especially delights 
to muster in as its chosen recruits the strong young men as 
they issue from the opening gates of great Universities, 
superb in their training of mind, body and soul, vaulting 
in their ambition, eager to get their strong arms on to the 
rigging and rudder of the ship of state. 

The glory of the new charity is that it attracts the elite, 
strong men and noble women, just in proportion to their 
strength and nobility of nature. Runts and the common 
herd may grovel on absorbed in common things. Great 
causes need and attract great men. God wants the giants. 
No phase of recent years is so full of promise and potency 
of better things to come as to the fact that our Colleges de- 
vote such earnest study to social problems and that leading 
young men, and women also, come out into life with burn- 
ing zeal to battle for the right and uplift the weak and 
improve the conditions of wretched life. 

Yes, Charity, with its trained legions of strong men in 
schools and colleges and out of them, in the ranks of labor 
as well as the students' study, women too vying with men 
in work and thought and leadership, is the ruling force. 
Charity smites open hide-bound individualism till social 
forces are free to expand and rule. Charity brings to birth 
the social conscience, the new potent ruler of life. Charity 
explodes the heresy of Cain, replacing it with Paul's great 
question, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? " 

What a mighty power Charity thus becomes: Ruling 
the individual by his own social conscience, claiming to 
rule the city, state and world. All hail, most gracious Ruler, 
your empire has begun. 

" The Expanson of Religion " was the keynote of Rev. 
E. Winchester Donald's great message of inspiration. 
Expansion is the order of the day. Expansion of the 
domain of charity is perhaps the most marvellous manifest- 



9 

ation of the social life of this last quarter of the nine- 
teenth century. 

Not quite yet have charity and the social conscience 
conquered the whole empire, going out to all men and tak- 
ing in all human brotherhood. Protectionists in America 
ignore poor laborers in Vienna. Skilled labor tramples on 
humbler grades of life. National glory delights to triumph 
over ancient foes. Armies and navies illustrate the pride 
and pomp and circumstance of glorious war. Victoria's Ju- 
bilee culminates in the grandest naval spectacle ever seen* 
Armenia, Crete and Cuba are too remote for the social con- 
science to go out to them in any effective aid. Peace 
Societies are indeed springing up through Europe in stren- 
uous protest against the wickedness, the economic slavery, 
the imbecile folly of armies and navies and lavish expen- 
diture of increasing proportion; a stupendous crime against 
common sense as well as the conscience of mankind. 

But if the social conscience has not girdled the earth, 

III. 
THE WHOLE RANGE OF HUMAN FACULTIES 
is summoned to aid in this fascinating and infinite work. 
Intellect is keenly aroused and intensely interested in the 
intellectual study of the countless problems growing out of 
suffering, defective or degenerate life, and gathers infinite 
statistics to be tabulated and analyzed till their honey is 
extracted. Sympathy is deeply stirred by all these sights 
and sounds of suffering, and u The bitter cry of outcast 
London" or New York or Boston will neither hush nor let 
its hearers sleep. Strong Will takes hold of one task after 
another with indomitable determination to set them right 
and renew the whole face of city life. Generosity pours 
out its gifts for each new cause with open hand even though 
carping critics like Morrison I. Swift, in that dark winter 
of discontent and unemployment, 1893-4, sneered at all that 
was given as only a trifle of what was due to the magni- 



10 

tude of prevailing distress. The Leisure of leisured men 
and women is offered to those in need, and vies in noble 
emulation with the at least equal sacrifice of time and 
strength offered after long hours of hard toil by many poor 
folk to their poorer brethren. Ingenuity is eager with 
fascinating magic to discover ways, new or old, to rescue 
sufferers from needs and conditions of infinite variety. 

Thus the whole range of various powers is needed at 
their best. No man too strong, no woman too lovely, but 
that the social conscience asks all. 

Friendly visiting is the corner stone of Boston's work as 
well as in most other cities of the United States which have 
followed the best lead. Boston has nearly 1000 volunteer 
visitors, the largest number in any city of the world, as 
well as a paid staff of thirteen trained and devoted experts. 
Brooklyn is the largest city where friendly visiting has 
gained a firm hold. Tn smaller cities like Newport the 
power of friendly visiting has worked wonders. How 
cities of the first rank like London, New York, Philadel- 
phia and Chicago can hold their own in the fight of Satan 
against God, if they think they are too big, or that dis- 
tances are too long for visitors to go to the poor, or con- 
ditions too terrible for gentlewomen or cultured men to go 
down among the slums, is too hard a question for me. Per- 
haps it can be answered by the College Settlements which, 
like Hull House in Chicago, are going as Leonidas to 
Thermopylae, or let us hope as Miltiades to Marathon. 

IV. 

THE THOROUGH SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE ASSOCIATED 

CHARITIES 

needs to be considered in one more aspect. Its Bureau of 
Registration preserves for ready use by all having a right to 
use it (limited sacredly to those who are seeking to help the 
poor family about whom information is sought) the results 
of thorough investigation, continued care, consultation and 



11 

decision about applicants for aid, till these records grow 
into most useful completeness. Experienced workers 
among the poor recognize the supreme folly of trying to 
offer useful aid till they have got at the whole truth. Min- 
isters and Churches on the contrary have hardly begun 
to learn the helpfulness of the Bureau of Registration, or 
the need of thorough diagnosis of new applicants for aid, or 
the wondrous variety of ways in which the new science of 
charity is learning to deal with the needs of great cities. 

The residuum of the people, Charles Booth's Submerged 
Tenth, Charles Loring Brace's Dangerous Classes, the 
wreckage, the volume of tramp life, the army of the unem- 
ployed, reach such proportions that they can no longer be 
dealt with hopefully as individuals, but fill up whole areas 
like that famous or infamous tenth ward of New York, or 
like that terrible ward in Liverpool which I have called 
Liverpool's Dead Sea. 

Pauperism is only a part of the trouble. Criminal life 
on the one side, difficulty in finding employment on the 
other, both aggravate the trouble greatly. Then we re- 
member, as President W. G. Tucker said in his Phi Beta 
oration at Harvard, in 1892, " The philanthropy which is 
content to relieve the sufferer from ivrong social conditions 
postpones the philanthropy which is determined at any cost 
to right those conditions." So we are startled or fascinated 
by the thought that the charitable energies and the social 
conscience demand of us to study the causes of all this 
mass of evil and to eradicate them speedily. 

Just to see how vast and varied a task awaits the chari- 
table forces of our times, do not try to make a catalogue, 
but pass in rapid review some of the departments of life of 
our common people which charity has branded as foul, 
unjust, unhealthy, inadequate. 

1. Foul homes come first, malignant source of physical 
disease or death, moral taint or ruin, outrage on child life 



12 

defrauded of a fair start in life. Hygienic conditions hor- 
rible, overcrowding terrible. We rejoice that not merely 
cities and towns are awake, but the nation acts. 

Read "The Slums of Great Cities" by the Labor Bureau 
at Washington (7th Special Report 1894). Read "The 
Housing of the Working People" by the same Bureau 
(8th Special Report, 1895, edited by Carroll D. Wright 
and prepared by Dr. E. R. L. Gould), the most valuable 
publication on the subject the world has yet seen. See 
how much is being done in many lands. Watch the move- 
ment to destroy the slums, move out the masses into the 
open fields of the suburbs, promote savings by Co-operative 
Banks and offer cosy suburban homes to families only a 
few years ago condemned to unhealthy overcrowded slum 
life. I must not dwell so fully on other movements which 
I can only touch. 

2. The liquor nuisance is attacked in dead earnest. 
Steady progress is made against this infinite evil; source 
of woe and degradation, with frequent ruin of family life 
and blight of offspring. 

3. Prison reform accepts the evident duty of improving 
prisoners as only a first step. Boys and girls must be saved 
from prison life by provision of play-grounds, innocent 
games, manual training, and boys' and girls' clubs, nobler 
conception by police of their functions, by probation under 
competent officers, with careful, constant and sympathetic 
watching over boys and girls (and indeed over adults also) 
who are on the ragged edge of wrong; by transplanting 
children into selected and supervised country homes. Our 
prisons are too many and too full. Their inmates, who are 
often victims of social neglect or outrage, cry like the rich 
man in Hell that society may do something to save their 
brothers and sisters from falling into the same plight. 

4. Outings of Country Week, free country rides, open 
air excursions are recognized aids to health and virtue. 



13 

5. Health urges irresistible appeal not only to men of 
medical knowledge, but to the social conscience of all. Hos- 
pitals of course of many sweet and blessed names deal with 
various ills that mortal flesh is heir to ; though not yet is 
the catalogue complete. Cottage hospitals for epileptics 
being among the last. Perhaps convalescent hospitals 
bring equal blessing with the best, offering open doors, sun- 
shine, air and ample food to worn out victims of long hours, 
poor pay and desperately wretched life. 

Medical skill and devotion, while always most useful ser- 
vants of charity, are increasing its task in a mysterious way. 
Nature's stern old law, that the fit survive and the unfit 
perish, is now yielding to the social conscience which in- 
vokes medical skill to save all human life. The terrible 
fact stares us in the face that out of the slums of physical 
and moral filth come into life many poor little suffering 
children terribly equipped with evil passions, feeble wills, 
bodies and minds of low order. Nature would remove most 
of this unfit life in its youth. Science saves it. But who 
yet adequately conceives what a continuing and never 
ending responsibility follows? This world and the next 
must watch what comes. First of all, this world will feel 
the economic burden of saving and maintaining this harvest 
of poor life. But worse yet, unequal to compete in the 
ranks of labor, these beings recruit the ranks of drunkards, 
criminals and paupers and lower the social average. Recog- 
nition of the never ending scope of this part of the problem 
is all that is possible here.* 

6. Says Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, "There are in 
New York already 105 cheap Lodging Houses with beds 
for 16,000 men, the cost per bed per night running from 



* The death rate of Gotham Court for five years was ioo per cent, 
higher than in the rest of New York till at last the Board of Health 
prohibited it from future habitation. Do we need any longer to 
seek where and how criminals are evolved ? 



14 

seven cents to thirty-five cents and these are acknowledged 
by all persons, we believe, to be an unmitigated evil. Every 
new lodging house, under whatever management, increases 
the number of vagrant and homeless persons." Read the 
dark, sad, fascinating story of all this life in Boston told by 
Mr. Alvan F. Sanborn in "Moody's Lodging Houses." 

7. Labor, brave, sturdy, honest labor, the noble ranks 
of labor, offer countless problems for the best thought of 
today, not all or indeed most of them connected with 
charity, a thought abhorred by labor. Justice not charity 
is its honored and commendable cry. Yet charity in its 
new realm of human sympathy delights to aid every 
righteous effort of labor. Lord Shaftesbury roused Eng- 
land this last half century against the cruelties of child 
labor and stirred up factory legislation. Charity accepts 
today its full duty to destroy sweating, aid to secure just 
laws for working men and woman, weekly payments of 
wages, protected machinery, accident insurance, and so on. 

8. Thrift has an especial claim on charity workers 
because labor leaders so often ignore it in their search for 
remedies by Legislation or by organizations against em- 
ployers, nor seem to think it good form to summon their 
hearers to make brave efforts to improve their lot by their 
own zeal. All the more necessary that candor, courage 
and wisdom should somewhere be found to proclaim to 
working people the glory and oftentimes the great success 
of self-reliance and thrift. 

9. Tramps, what to do with them, how to eradicate 
them, excite our anger; till champions, found even for 
them, summon society to offer them work and a reasona- 
bly easy road back to virtue and social life. 

10. Unemployment casts its baleful shadow across this 
and every land. Enough here to allude to it as a gigan- 
tic problem. 

Jfow long, O Lord, how long must any schedule be of 



15 

human needs, ills, woes and wrongs ? Let the civilization, 
wonderful, terrible, uplifting and downtreading, of great 
cities give the answer; — as far only as we have yet gone; 
for who dares to guess what shall be the future growth 
and size of cities, and what new dread evils shall come 
therewith, and what new divine outbursts of charity the 
supreme social conscience shall evoke to contend with all 
these new vast evils and indeed to suppress and eradicate 
them, as we, optimists with faith that God rules and that 
virtue working with God must triumph, firmly believe. 

Roman Emperors provided "panem et circences," bread 
and games, to please the populace, but their aim was mere 
temporary pleasure, not permanent welfare. Even the 
Baths of Diocletian, the most superb ruins of any work 
that I recall for the people's good, hardly aimed higher. 
Not so with all our tasks today — to uplift the people, to 
improve their permanent lot in life, nay to build them into 
nobler men and women for this life and the world to come, 
nobler men in all their relations of this world and nobler 
men in their knowledge, love and service of God. Broad 
and mighty empire is thus offered by the world to Charity. 
Ampler functions and more stupendous tasks, but also new 
and mighty allies, the great forces of man's new being. 
The Social Conscience rules mankind, nor rules it only, but 
inspires it also. Here is the future inspiration for poetic 
genius and literary achievement. Here is the inspiration 
of life among the leaders of the world. 

Did not our Saviour say, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all 
thy mind?" And also, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself?" Here are the two forces, Church and Charity. 
Fatal divorce if they are separated, glorious alliance if 
they unite. Each needs the other with supreme need. 
Yet each deals largely with its own department. 

Thus we come to the practical question of such urgent 
practical moment, 



16 

V. 

WHAT SHALL BE THE RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH AND 
THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES 

in dealing with this mighty problem of human needs in 
all their infinite variety, present and prospective, which in 
these last pages I have tried to outline ? 

No universal answer can be given. Conditions vary, and 
in varying conditions different replies would be wise. Vil- 
lage life might well leave to the Church, with its Ministry 
of God aided by lay men and women, to care for all the 
simpler problems of village need. 

Even cities in some far away halcyon age may find 
Churches adequately equipped with Ministers and Assistant 
ministers and such well trained and numerous lay helpers 
that they can cope with city problems and wisely organize 
and successfully direct the charitable energies of the 
community. 

But in our times and in the crowded life of cities the 
Church and organized charity must both put forth their 
utmost energies and must co-operate. My subject just 
now is to consider how they can best co-operate and what 
shall be the field and function of the Church. In diagnos- 
ing the situation, the most salient and important fact is 
that people are so migratory. Streams of people pour 
into cities and soon vanish away. Their homes are in one 
ward this week, but next month who knows where they 
live? New comers in a city have no Church connection; 
at least too often this is so. Not here the place to study 
reasons or remedies, but to deal with facts. Too often also 
the fact is that new comers in a city try many Churches, 
one after another, sending children to two or more at the 
same time and thus creating various relations. 

The duties of the Church may then be considered with 
reference 

1. to their own poor, 

2. to the unchurched poor of the city, 



17 

3. to the poor of other cities who come near the Church, 
remembering always as to each of these classes and 
indeed never forgetting the great variety of needs and 
methods of dealing with needs which our earlier pages 
have outlined; relief being only an atom of the great 
whole. 

VI. 

The Church owes towards all of its own poor in any and 
all of their varying needs prompt, adequate and tender care. 
Woe be to any Church which will let its own members want. 
Few Churches begin yet to realize what a large and varied 
measure of devotion this will call for. Over ten years ago 
one great city parish distinctly accepted this duty in a 
carefully drawn vote of its Visiting Committee; — 

" That we recognize the duty of this parish towards the 
needy poor connected with the parish, and, while we wel- 
come the kindly aid of individuals, we propose (as a rule 
subject to rare exceptions for suitable cause) to take ex_ 
elusive care of our own poor, without calling on any organ- 
ized visiting agency like the Provident Association, and 
least of all on the public Overseers of the Poor." 

Observe that it is only to its own poor that this duty is 
undertaken. Remember also that many poor parishes may 
not be always able financially to go to this length, in which 
cases, of course, relief can and should be sought and secured 
outside from what source is most appropriate. 

What aid or co-operation do the Associated Charities 
ask from Churches. In addressing the active workers of a 
strong parish last winter as President of the Associated 
Charities of Boston, I reduced this request to five heads : 

1. That the Church (as just stated) take exclusive, 
adequate and judicious care of its own poor in the way of 
relief. 

2. That the Church aid the Associated Charities finan- 
cially by taking up a yearly collection. 



18 

3. Also by furnishing a goodly number of friendly vis- 
itors to work in the Charities. 

4. That the Church should accept the responsibility 
of dealing with new comers in the city who ought to be 
connected with that Church. 

5. That the Church through its Minister or visitors of 
the poor should report to the Registration office of the 
Associated Charities the names of poor persons whom it 
aided ; subject always to fit exceptions of its own known 
poor, and should also take one step more even as to 
them, such is the desperate weakness of stumbling human 
nature and so prone are some poor folk to couple a bit of 
deception with their begging and thus to seek and get 
relief from several sources, carefully concealing this fact 
from such donors, all of which is revealed if the Church 
almoner will go to the Registration office of the Charities 
and stating to the registrar that he does not wish to regis- 
ter any of the Church poor, not already registered by some 
one else, will ask the registrar if families with these names 
A. B. and C. D., &c, are already registered. If yea, the 
Church's gifts are reported and return information is 
received on the spot and always thereafter by mail. But 
if any such Church family has not been registered in the 
Charities office before, no registration is made by the 
Church. Thus the sacred relations are preserved of the 
Church to its own poor, while also the Church gains the 
benefit of all information gathered in the Charities office 
from all other sources. Co-operation as to these poor fam- 
ilies thus becomes complete and effective between the 
Church and the Associated Charities. 

In response to this address and appeal, the Church ac- 
cepted the full measure of its supposed duty. To the 
fourth request this carefully drawn reply was sent a few weeks 
later, after due deliberation : " That the Visiting Society 
of this Church pledges itself to minister, through its 



19 

visitors and the clergy of the parish, to all persons con- 
nected, or wishing to be connected with this Church. But 
it cannot pledge itself to supply all the physical needs of 
those who may desire to be considered members of this 
Church, as the Society feels and fears that such a pledge 
would attract to the parish more persons than the funds 
available for the relief of the poor could provide for." 

Weigh thoughtfully both parts of this response, the 
first and affirmative pledge to minister — that is spiritually — 
to all who may wish to be connected with the Church. No 
one who has worked much as a visitor of the Associated 
Charities among the poor can help feeling that this pledge 
is of vast and deep reaching significance. For think of the 
sad lot of new comers in a great city. Often many are 
friendless. 

"Oh, it was pitiful, 

Near a whole city-full, 

Home she had none." 

Often they are seeking work in vain. Often in their 
desperate poverty they know not which way to turn or 
what to do. (What inconceivable idiots are those critics 
of the Associated Charities and their motto of " Not Alms 
but a Friend" who sneer at the cheer and counsel of a 
" friend.") Often, quite as often as any of these other ills, 
our wayfaring poor have no Church connection, no Church 
to go to, no minister to speak to them of God and holy 
things. Too often hitherto this whole side of need has been 
ignored. Cruel neglect. The Church has a vast, a tre- 
mendous, a glorious duty just here in all great cities. 
Visitors of the Charities meet this spiritual need every day 
and at every turn. Not yet have they begun in Boston 
or in any city of which I have knowledge to recognize their 
privilege and duty to aid and to bring those lost sheep 
back to their spiritual Shepherd and their fold, their 



20 

Church, their minister, their friends in Christ. This new 
duty and new function of Associated Charities visitors, 
this new duty of ministers and Churches, need to be writ 
large through our city life. Co-operation of Church and 
Charities will receive a great blessing of our Lord as it 
brings home one lost sheep after another, till their number 
is legion. 

I ask every minister and Church who may see the 
response of the Church just cited to think if they cannot 
accept and announce the same full measure of responsi- 
bility. I ask every visitor of the Charities to bear in mind 
the privilege of inviting ministers to care for all such needy 
wayfarers in a spiritual sense. 

Here surely I should also repeat the caution which has 
always been inviolate against any semblance of proselyting. 
Always connect the poor with the Church of their own 
faith. Where may proof of religious progress in our days 
be more convincingly found than in the absolute freedom 
from any charge of proselyting of all this great outburst of 
charity in England and America? 

VII. 

Four points now demand attention. 

1. A certain danger in relief work by ministers and 
the Church. 

2. The assured resurrection of the Church into new 
relations of love and influence with the working people, 
the masses. 

3. The duty of the Church to shed a potent influence of 
kindliness over the discussions of charitable problems. 

4. The glorious privilege of its spiritual message to the 
charities of the world. 

First, the danger in attempting physical relief is sure and 
serious. Ministers must allow me to say bluntly that I 
fear — and many wise charitable workers hold this fear even 
more strongly than I do — that ministers and Churches are 



21 

not yet educated and trained to deal with the problem of 
relief without doing far more harm than good.* 

How many ministers have the sound judgment mani- 
fested so splendidly by Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow when 
with judicious firmness he reduced pauperism to its lowest 
proportions ? 

Said Archbishop Whately, "Pay a man to work and he 
will work ; pay him to beg and he will beg." Tuckerman 
the judicious and beloved Missionary in Boston half 
a century ago said: "Never teach a child to beg; the boy 
will grow a thief ; the girl will grow up a thief, or worse." f 

Arts of beggars are proverbial. Pleasure of yielding to 
them and giving a coin or two seems so real. Quaint old 
Charles Lamb is delicious in his heresy: "Give and ask no 
questions." No wonder then that most Ministers, till they 
gain wisdom with years of blunders and harm done, are 
too prone to be lavish with gifts of that physical relief 



* William Law, the author of the " Serious Call to a Devout and 
Holy Life," and two rich friends agreed to give almost all their 
joint income in relieving all who applied to them and who repre- 
sented themselves as in want. The result was that they attracted 
crowds of idle and lying mendicants. For a long time Law shut his 
eyes to the evil of which he was thus the occasion ; until at last his 
fellow-parishioners were driven to present a memorial to the magis- 
trates, entreating them in some way to prevent Mr. Law from thus 
demoralizing their parish. 



t Here are two anecdotes, one ancient, one modern. 

A Lacedemonian said to a beggar, " If I should give thee anything 
I should but make thee a greater beggar, for he that gave first to 
thee made thee idle, and so determined thee to this base way of liv- 
ing." — Plutarch. A lady passed resolutely b}^ a melancholy, whin- 
ing beggar, and heard him mutter, in atone of despair, "I must, then, 
I will do it! " Thinking to avert some terrible resolve, she turned 
back and gave him money, and then tenderly inquired what was 
his desperate determination. "Oh, my dear good lady," he replied, 
"but for your timely charity I had almost resolved to go to work," 



22 

which Octavia Hill, with a heart as warm in sympathy as 
lives, tells us she has learned not to make. 

The mere waste of money is an insignificant factor in 
the problem. It is the waste of character and force done 
to the poor, who have too little force of character already, 
that does irreparable wrong. Giving drink to the drunkard 
meets his wish, receives his thanks, but adds to his curse. 
Whether it is wise and well to enlarge the sphere of relief 
of need by ministers and Churches is a grave question, not 
free from risk. My judgment is, that the duty is so solemn 
and so urgent that they must undertake it and with all 
counsel from those who love and honor them must dis- 
charge it as well as lies in their power. 

Hypocrisy is another risk to be reckoned with. Serious 
indeed to tempt the poor into the Church with loaves and 
fishes and warm clothing for them and their children' 
What wonder if the poor are often human and make be- 
lieve in order to deceive their minister and indeed them- 
selves ? 

Just here the Associated Charities offer most helpful 
co-operation, and are ready, or ought to be, to accept from 
any mnister or Church the care physical, not spiritual 
of course, of any poor person detected in hypocritical deal- 
ing or sponging on his Minister's good nature and lying 
down on relief, when he should be stirring himself for vig- 
orous self-support. Well and wisely may Churches turn 
back to the Charities the care of these cases — exceptional 
may I say — not for punishment, but for firm and judicious 
treatment. So much for dangers, very real and far too 
frequent in the care by Churches of the poor, sometimes 
among their own families but oftener among new coiners 
who creep in for what they can get. 

Second — Is not the resurrection of the Church into 
new relations of love and influence with working people, 



23 

the masses, sure to flow out of this coming alliance of 
the Church and the Charities ? 

Between Scylla and Charybdis the Church must steer 
with wary wisdom. Avoid the errors of the past, the in- 
discriminate almsgiving of Bergamo and the selfish pietism 
of La Grande Chartreuse. But beware of absorption in 
the works of the world. Heed the warning of Phillips 
Brooks; do not choose an engineer but a man with a mes- 
sage from God to the souls of men. Safe from either 
extreme, what a mighty career opens before the Church in 
its relations to working people in great cities. What dark- 
er chapter has the Church had in all its history than when 
it allowed the alienation from it of the masses of the peo- 
ple to grow so deep and bitter? Is it not a question of 
deep interest and of uncertain answer even yet whether the 
influence of the Church on the masses of working people 
is waxing or waning? What better can the Church do 
than, realizing how vital this duty is to itself as well as 
to the people, to put on the whole armor of God for the 
brotherhood of man? Let us hope the papers correctly 
reported Bishop Potter in a recent address that from this 
time forward the Church is on the side of the workingmen. 

To men who at their utmost can barely supply their 
earthly wants, mere spiritual appeal without effort or zeal 
to help them where their need of help is so urgent is not 
enough. No wonder that laboring men have turned away 
from the Church door even if the charge be hardly true 
that in going by they often look in to hiss a curse. Much 
blame to the Church that she has been so slow to enter the 
field where the example of her Saviour taught her to lead. 
In the noble science of sociology, if she has not been the 
pioneer, surely she cannot be the mere camp follower. 

Well says Prof. John R. Commons {The Church and 
the Problems of Charity'): 

"Now I should prove a fruitless and carping Jeremiah if, 
in addition to what I have already said, I were unable to point 



24 

out how the Church is to meet these problems, and to show that it 
is possible for her to meet them. From what I have said, it follows 
that the first thing to do is for the ministers and Church workers to 
get information, and to learn general principles. Let them study 
the science of sociolgy in all its branches, as they have studied the 
science of theology. Magnificent work has been done in this 
science, and its best general and special treatises are safe guides to 
the student. The causes of phenomena in sociology, as in every 
other science, lie beneath the surface, and cannot be discovered by 
the beginning student from his own original observations. He 
needs the guidance of trained observers and philosophical thinkers. 
With this in view church libraries on sociology should be carefully 
selected, and the books circulated among the congregation. The 
minister should be a guide to the reading and study of his parish- 
ioners. Frequent addresses could also be secured from specialists 
in charities, penology, the family, labor, monopolies. 

"But books and lectures can do little more than stimulate and 
guide. The essential method is to come into actual contact with 
social conditions. P A or this purpose there is no better way than to 
adopt the methods and join in the work of modern scientific charity. 
A charity organization society means far more than its name indi- 
cates. It is not a society for dispensing alms, but a society for 
investigation and friendship. It is organized Christian love, reach- 
ing to the very root of all social questions. A charity organization 
society touches every social problem — the problem of labor, of the 
unemployed, of long hours, of women and children workers, of city 
government; it offers the only true way of getting at the facts 
which I have dwelt upon. The man who has assisted in this work 
for even a short time can speak with assurance. He knows the 
actual condition whereof he speaks. I should not feel so strongly 
nor know so surely the terrible power of capital over labor, through 
the denial of the right to employment, had not work in a charity 
organization society brought me into contact with individual cases. 

" There is no position so good as that of friendly visitor in a 
charity organization society for getting beneath our industrial sys- 
tem and understanding its true significance for the hearts and 
souls of men." 

Third — One gift at least, that of peace and love, the 
Church can give to this whole realm of study and debate. 
Sharp and bitter words often fatally aggravate. How can 
we adequately appreciate the supreme value of a general 
spirit of sympathy pervading all these discussions? For 



25 

instance, it is much to be regretted that writers of such 
preeminent power as Dr. Bosanquet, Mr. C. S. Loch and 
Miss Dudley in "Aspects of the Social Problem " should 
so irritate a keen critic like John A. Hobson as to lead him 
to say (in the November 1896 Contemporary), "The book 
may, therefore, be regarded as an authoritative statement 
of the opposition of the propertied classes to schemes of 
old age pensions," feeding of school children at the public 
expense, public provision of work for the unemployed and 
other proposals of public aid for the poor and needy. 
Questions of such intricacy call for calm judgment in 
sweetest temper, quite impossible if passions are aroused 
and "propertied classes" are falsely portrayed as set over 
against schemes to improve the lot of the poor. 

Wisely refraining from dogmatic decision of such hard 
questions, is it not a glorious function of the Church to 
teach champions on both sides to speak with the tongues of 
angels ? 

Fourth — What a glorious privilege falls to the Church 
and to the Ministry of God to inspire the great crusade of 
our awakened times against all the myriad ills of human 
life and to stimulate noblest charity to its divine tasks. 

Even agnostics will begin to work and then to pray. 
Does not Van Dyke, after drawing his sombre picture of the 
skeptical age in which we live, find hope in the " persistent 
desire of many doubting spirits to serve mankind by love, 
self-sacrifice and ethical endeavor?" 

"We see," says Van Dyke, "anew crusade of another kind; a 
powerful movement of moral enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice, of altru- 
ism, even among those who profess to be out of sympathy with 
Christianity which is a sign of promise, because it reveals a force 
that cries out for faith, and for Christian faith, to guide and direct 
it. Never was there a time when the fine aspirations of the young 
manhood and young womanhood of our country needed a more 
inspiring and direct Christian leadership." 

No wonder, then, that this new career attracts mightily 



26 

all noblest souls. No wonder that they rest in firm faith 
that here is the dominant power which is more and more 
to subdue and rule the world. No wonder that men with 
a living faith that God, the mighty Creator and ruler of 
this whole Universe, is working with them, or rather that 
they are working with God to carry out and hasten His 
will and wish, rest in absolute assurance that they and He 
cannot fail. 

Do not misunderstand. Often through the ages vain 
men have imagined their weak wills were the will of God. 
Even now in any detail who dares to be the oracle of God ? 
But in larger ways who does not know that the Sermon on 
the Mount is true today and forever? 

Again, let the Church and Clergy beware of preaching 
for or against any purely economic problem or any politi- 
cal issue. Glorious field enough for them remains to teach 
the fundamental Christian principles which should deter- 
mine all political and economic issues. But who can read 
the long list which I have written above of practical 
methods which human wit and sympathy have already dis- 
covered to help the wretched, without feeling in his soul 
what infinite need there is that our Ministers should speak 
to the people like the prophets and apostles of old ? Let 
them beware of the danger of being diverted from their 
own great career in order to minister to tables. Well may 
they inspire their congregations and the city to undertake 
with full measure of devotion all wise ways of uplifting 
suffering man, of improving his lot in life, of giving boys 
and girls a fair start in life, of abolishing cruel conditions, 
of creating an atmosphere of brotherly love between em- 
ployers and employed. All this and how much more they 
may inspire. 

In conclusion then, what are the results of this study of 
the relations between the Church and the Associated 
Charities ? 



27 

1. We appreciate how vast and varied is the domain 
of social needs, especially in great cities. 

2. Organizing Charity summons into personal service 
multitudes of men and women to provide remedies for 
every sort of social wrong or woe, and, better still, to study 
and remove their causes. Nay the social conscience is 
sweeping all men under its influence, especially men and 
women of noblest nature, strong in sympathy, keen in 
intellect and large in vision. 

3. The Church and the Associated Charities must work 
in perfect co-operation. 

4. The Church must learn practical wisdom in dealing 
with physical needs of all its own poor. Relief, as we have 
seen, is only a fraction of the whole problem of uplifting 
those who are down, but so far as relief is concerned, 
Churches must learn to give with judgment and, what is 
far harder and far more important, to refuse with firmness. 

But outside the whole problem of relief are all those 
other problems of wretchedness, ten of which I have above 
outlined, endangered child life, criminal life, tramp life, 
unemployment, broken health, and so on, where the counsel 
and aid of experts is essential and is wonderfully helpful. 
Ministers and Churches can no more be expected to become 
experts in these various directions than they can be- 
come expert patent lawyers, oculists or surgeons. My 
chief reason for outlining the above partial catalogue of 
ways in which wretchedness needs rescue was to convince 
thoughtful ministers and wide-awake Churches how utterly 
incompetent they are to fulfil their duties either to their 
own poor or to the unchurched poor who come to their 
doors except by the fullest alliance and co-operation with 
and aid from organized Charity, whose special duty it is to 
know every practical method of dealing with distress. 

£. The Church must fully meet the manifest duty of 



28 

going out with loving spiritual ministration to the un- 
churched poor whom the workers in charity are daily 
finding, and must learn to report to the Church. 

6. The Church is entitled to rule the lives of men, and 
to help if not guide their thoughts by preaching the love 
of God and the sacrifice of Jesus with such power that the 
social conscience shall find in the Church its fire and food; 
that personal service shall be the sweet and potent rule of 
life ; that workers in the Associated Charities shall find in 
the Church their daily inspiration. So shall the Church 
not merely preach the Word of God and the love of man, 
but shall make the relations between itself and Organized 
Charity so full of perfect co-operation as to create steady 
improvement physical, mental, moral and spiritual in the 
conditions of life among men. 



PUBLICATIONS. 

The following have appeared in the Publications of the Union. 
They may be had from the Secretary at ten cents each. 

FIRST SERIES. 
(April, 1895, to April, 1896). 



Series A* 

The Church of the World. 

Rev. R. A. Holland, S. T. D. 
The Church's Duty in Relation 

to the sacredness of property. 

Rev. Prof. W. Cunningham, D. D. 

Social Problems and the Church. 

Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S. T. D. 
Out of Print. 

The Incarnation, a Revelation 
of Human Duties. 

Rt. Rev. B. F. Westcott, D. D. 

Rights and Duties. 

Extracts from Joseph Mazzini. 

What the Church Social Union 
Is. 

The Social Teaching of the Ear- 
ly Fathers. (Two Views.) 

Revs. C. L. Marson and W. F. Cobb. 

The Church's Opportunity in the 
City To-day. 

Rev. \V. S. Rainsford, D. D. 
Present Aspect of the Church 
Social Union. 

Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington. 

Socialism and Spiritual Progress. 
Miss Vida D. Scudder. 

The Spirit and Work of the 
Early Christian Socialists. 

Rev. C. H. Brent. 
The Economics of Improved 
Housing. 

Prof. E. R. Iy. Gould. 



Series B* 

The Railroad Strike of 1894. 

Prof. W. J. Ashley, M. A. 

An Interpretation of the Social 
Movements of our Time. 

Prof. Henry C. Adams, Ph. D. 

Arbitration and Conciliation. 

Rev. W. D. P. Bliss. 

Political Economy and Practical 
Life. 
Rev. Prof. W. Cunningham, D. D. 

Strikes. 

Rev. Prof. W. Cunningham, D. D. 

A Plan of Work. 

The Slums of Great Cities. 

Rev. P. W. Sprague. 

Industrial Arbitration and Con- 
ciliation. 

Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell. 

Legality and Propriety of Labor 
Organizations. Suggestions by 
the Attorney General of the United 
States in Piatt v. P. & R. R. R. 

American Trade Unions. 

Rev. W. D. P. Bliss. 

Report of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Church Social 
Union. 

The Christian Law. 

Rt. Rev. B. F. Westcott, D. D. 



No. 25. Poverty and its Causes, 

Rev. W. D. P. Bliss. 



No. 26. 



Christian Socialism. 

Rev. F. D. Maurice 



No. 27. What One Parish is Doing 
for Social Reform. 

Rev. J. P. Peters, D. D. 

No. 28. Settlements and the 
Church's Duty. 

Ellen Gates Starr. 

No. 29. Report on the Questions 

Drawn up by Present Residents 

in our College Settlements. 

No. 30. Christian Socialism and 

the Social Union. 

Rev. George Hodges, D. D. 
No. 31. The Work of the Prospect 
Union. 

Rev. Robert E. Ely. 
No. 32. Is There a Social Ques- 
tion — for America ? 

Rev. Henry S. Nash, D. D. 
No. 33. The Economics of Devo- 
tion. 

Rev. Charles Ferguson. 
No. 34. The Modification of 
Christianity by its Contact 
with the World. 

Prof. E. P. Gould. 



SECOND SERIES. 
(April 1896 to April 1897.) 
I 

No. 35. Social Righteousness and 
the Power of the Church to 
Proclaim It. 

Mr. Rathbone Gardner. 



No. 36. 

DAY. 



The Saturday Half-Holi- 
Rev. James Yeames. 
THIRD SERIES. 



No. 37. A Lawyer's View of the 
Function of the Church. 

Robert H. Gardiner. 
No. 38. The Rights of Capital 

AND L,ABOR AND INDUSTRIAL CON- 
CILIATION. 

Mrs. C. R. Lowell. 

No. 39. The Republic of Letters. 
Robert A. Wood. 

No. 40. The Relations Between 
the Church and the Associated 
Charities. 

Robert Treat Paine. 



These Publications are issued with the general approval of the 
Executive Committee ; but no responsibility is assumed for the par- 
ticular views of individual writers It is intended to provide for the 
expression of divergent opinions. 

All letters should be addressed to 

THE CHURCH SOCIAL UNION, 

1 Joy Street, Boston, Mass. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



III 

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